Gearshift Films’ Gay Mean Girls, N5 Pictures’ The Runner and Attraction Images’ Fourchette are among 23 projects to receive a share of $4.1 million through the inaugural round of the Bell Fund’s Short-Form Digital Series (Fiction) Pilot Program.

Through the stream, series are eligible to receive up to $150,000 plus an additional $50,000 to help support the discoverability of the projects. In total, the Bell Fund supported 15 English-language and eight French-language projects in this round.

Other English projects to receive financing included first seasons of LaRue Productions’ Bit Playas, Broken Compass Films’ Detention Adventure, Old Soul Productions’ For the Record, Bullrush Pictures’ Hospital Show, Shaftesbury’s The Motorcycle Project, The Artcraft Zoo’s The Ninth, Tokens On Call Productions’ Tokens and Off the Warf Productions’ Wharf Rats.

The fund also backed second seasons of LoCo Motion Pictures’ How to Buy a Baby, Boss & Co’s Barbelle, Zoot Pictures’ Nikola Tesla and the End of the World, She Said Films’ Running with Violet and iThentic’s Save Me.

On the French-language side, funding went to Les productions Passez Go’s Faux départ, Blachfilms’ Juste nous deux, Les productions St Laurent TV’s La maison des folles, Productions KOTV and La CORP’s Le Killing, Babel Films’ Revenu, Zone3’s Téodore pas de H and season two of Koze.tv’s Les Prodiges.

The Short-Form Digital Series (Fiction) Pilot Program is one of a number of new streams launched by the Bell Fund last year as a response to the CRTC’s revised policy framework for Certified Independent Production Funds. The other new streams are Slate Development Pilot Program, Short-Form Digital Series (Non-Fiction) Pilot Program, Webdocs Development Pilot Program and the TV program.

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